Image: Hubble Discovers Powerful Laser Beamed from Chaotic Star

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ABOUT THIS IMAGE:

This is an artist's concept of a gas cloud (left) that acts as a
natural ultraviolet laser, near the huge, unstable star Eta Carinae
(right)  one of most massive and energetic stars in our Milky Way
Galaxy.

The super-laser was identified by a team led by Kris Davidson of the
University of Minnesota, and including nine other collaborators in the
U.S. and Sweden during spectroscpic observations made with the Goddard
High Resolution spectrograph aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Since it's unlikely that a single beam from the cloud would happen to
be precisely aimed in earth's driection, the astronomers conclude that
numerous beams must be radiating from the cloud in all directions -
beams from a dance hall mirror-ball. The interstellar laser may result
from Eta Carinae's violently chaotic eruptions, illustrated here as a
reddish (due to light scattering by dust) outflow from the bright
star.

A laser, (an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of
Radiation) creates an intense coherent beam of light when atoms or
molecules in a gas, liquid or solid medium, force an incoming mix of
wavelengths (or colors) of light to work in phase, or, at the same
wavelength. Though a natural infrared laser was identified in space in
1995, lasers are very rare in space and nothing like the UV laser has
ever been seen before.

Eta Carinae is several million times brighter than the Sun, and one
hundred times as massive. The superstar, located 8,000 light-years
away in the souther constellation Carina, underwent a colossal outburst
150 years ago.